Hustling Lessons From The Heavyweight Marketing Champion

The difference between a preacher and a teacher hides in their actions. A teacher practices what he preaches. Gary Vaynerchuk is a teacher.

After being a New York Times bestselling author, Gary Vee is about to publish a new book: #AskGaryVee.

Just like his previous bestsellers, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook”, and “Crush It!”, the new book is a mixture of advice on entrepreneurship, getting things done and how to do social media the right way. And as you know, he’s pouring gems of wisdom so it’s definitely top on our reading list.

Open as he is, Gary recently live-streamed on Facebook a full marketing meeting with his staff. At some point, 3,000 people were viewing it live. On that meeting, they were discussing the new book that’s coming and offering the opportunity to have a one-on-one live phone calls with Gary. What’s the catch? You need to buy more than 40 books. Not a deal for just any fan.

This live stream openly revealed the team’s strategy and become a transparent masterclass. So here’s how Gary Vaynerchuk promotes his new AskGaryVee book and what we’ve learned from it:

1. “Marketing in the year that we actually live in”

Everybody’s doing interviews and guest blogging when launching a new book. None are offering a ‘new page a day’ on Snapchat.

The quote above is one of Gary’s famous ones and he practices it all the time. He’s an early adopter of Snapchat and now an influencer on this platform himself. When considering the where, Snapchat came right away.

2. Be wherever your audience is. Are you podcasting?

It’s very easy to market your product where you feel most comfortable at: Facebook, Twitter, Google. But your audience also spends much time elsewhere: they are on Instagram, YouTube, Soundcloud, Peach, you name it. Are you there?

At the meeting, the team talked about uploading Gary’s talk to Soundcloud. It’s the time where podcasts are trending and these guys are not going to leave this medium unattended.

3. People are excited to talk to you – and so should you

If there’s one thing to take home from Gary’s previous bestseller, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook”, it’s that you must be emotionally invested with your audience. That will make them care about you. For example, your audience doesn’t spend time on social just to see your ads but for entertainment. Are you entertaining?

It was fascinating to see how Gary took that to the next level. On the live stream, he spoke on the phone with several people who bought the books bundle. They were super excited talking to him – and so was he. He made them feel comfortable to open their hearts and share a story. And it was soon enough that people mentioned how influential he was in their life. He was all-in during these calls. When on a call, he left all promotion aside and was simply Gary.

4. “DM the world”

Now this is getting interesting. Gary is going on a book tour and his team is looking for Instagram influencers to invite for each of the 26 locations that he’s supposed to visit. How do they manage the influencer marketing strategy in so many locations?

They use tools to identify Instagram influencers based on location. They are looking for influencers with some affinity to Gary’s materials.

They do their research and get personal. They look for email addresses in the influencers’ bios and then contact them.

As one of the team said, she’s “DMing the world”.

Transparency: People ask how they were found. Gary says: we used social tools. No need to go around it.

Invite them to a book signing event.

5. “These people have real context with me”

You would think that when a person like Gary invites you to an event, the response rate would skyrocket. That’s true, but only with the right people and the context.The team mentioned that they expect to get asked for compensation from people who aren’t strongly affiliated with Gary (“cool, give me $700”).

That’s always something to remember. Influencer marketing is about creating long-term relationships. Gary was looking for people that know him already, that his books and talks made a difference in their lives. These kind of influencers would answer an invite with a simple yes and a big smile.

Master Hustling

Gary’s social strategy is simple: deliver constant value. Returns will come later. He is not just a hustler, he delivers. He masters every social element, not in the name of perfecting skills, but for the sake of delivering his passion wherever he can. He’s using the freshest features on every social network, he grows organically, and knows how to create micro-statements in shareable bites, just right for the retweet culture.

One aspect of this social mastery is apparent in the title of his book: #AskGaryVee. We’ve covered before what makes a hashtag successful, and this one, which is also the name of his YouTube show, answers the criteria.Social perfecting every step he takes is what makes Gary’s presence grow so fast. As openly seen here, he can not do it without influential supporters, data-backed tools and passion. Have these three and you are ready to become a hustler.